CPFT publish peer worker evaluation report

12th September 2012

In May 2010, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) began training peer workers for employment in teams delivering mental health services throughout the Trust. CPTF asked RAND Europe to evaluate the early stages of the programme’s implementation.

The CPFT peer worker programme was one of the earliest, and is now one of the largest, of its kind in the UK.

CPFT define a peer worker as “someone with significant experience of mental distress, who works alongside others with similar difficulties in order to facilitate recovery through promoting hope and providing support based on common experiences.” Sharon Gilfoyle, CPFT Peer Employment Manager previously wrote for SRN about their experiences in advance of our Experts by Experience conference last year.

The evaluation focuses on the perceptions of different stakeholders of the programme’s impact and the successes and challenges of its implementation. As part of this work RAND Europe developed a logic model in collaboration with CPFT to describe the theory of change underlying the peer worker programme, in order to inform future planning of the programme and ongoing performance measurement.